


Liebesträume n. 3: Nocturne in A Flat Major

by Lily_Dragon



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: AU, Gen, classical piano, neighbours hate musicians, poor music student
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 04:39:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6409186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lily_Dragon/pseuds/Lily_Dragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a never ending cycle, really. If she studied at home, her neighbours would complain. If she didn’t study at home, her professor would fail her, and her dreams of becoming a professional pianist would fly out the window. So what the hell was she supposed to do?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liebesträume n. 3: Nocturne in A Flat Major

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there! This is the result of some procrastination in other stories, an adorable, if random, prompt on tumblr and some huge, HUGE music nerdiness. This is a story strongly based on particular pieces of music, so I would advise you to listen to them while you read. They are: 
> 
> Prelude and Fugue n. 6 in D minor - J. S. Bach. The Well Tempered Clavier Book 2
> 
> Liebesträume n. 3: Nocturne in A Flat Major - Franz Liszt.

Rose sped down the corridor, clutching a stack of music sheets tightly to her chest and praying she wouldn’t meet any neighbours on the way to her flat. It was bad enough that her professor had nearly kicked her out of the class for her poor performance earlier today - she didn’t need anyone else tell her how terrible she was.

It was a never ending cycle, really. If she studied at home, her neighbours would complain. If she didn’t study at home, her professor would fail her, and her dreams of becoming a professional pianist would fly out the window. So what the hell was she supposed to do?

As she sat down on the rickety stool and smoothed down the crinkled edges of her latest study piece, she wondered what delightful reaction she would have this time. Mrs. Jenkins shouting that she couldn’t hear the telly? The angry mechanic upstairs banging on the ceiling? Rude anonymous notes? The most noteworthy one so far had been when the boys downstairs had moved their speakers to the corridor and blasted loud rap music until she couldn’t even hear herself playing anymore.

To say people weren’t overly fond of classical piano music in the Estate was an understatement.

Nonetheless, she tried to shut down everything else as she began working on her scales, letting the familiar ascending sounds and the feeling of the cool keys beneath her fingers soothe her mind. The old and worn upright piano had belonged to her father, a brilliant jazz pianist whose life had been cut short in a car accident when Rose was little.  She could barely remember his face, but if she closed her eyes she could still see his big hands caressing the keys, playfully chasing melodies while little Rose sat on his lap, enraptured.

Her mother had kept the piano out of sentimentality after he died. Had she known her daughter would eventually want to be a musician, Rose was certain Jackie would have sold it in a heartbeat.

“You’re wasting your life in useless dreaming, just like your father!”

Rose sighed as her eyes skimmed the first line of the Prelude and Fugue she was supposed to have ready by next class. Maybe her mother was right. Maybe she could have kept the piano as a hobby, playing the pieces of her beloved romantic composers to her heart’s content in her downtime while she got a degree in something useful that could give her a lot of money. Even money enough to buy herself a good electronic piano that would allow her to play the night away with headphones instead of putting up with her neighbours.

Deep breaths. She should concentrate. This piece wasn’t like one of her dreamy nocturnes where she could just let her mind wander through the dreamy landscape created by her fingertips. Bach was methodical, cerebral, the beauty of the fugue in the perfect balance between the three melodic lines with perfect, precise phrasing. Her professor had accused Rose of being too careless with the technical aspects, and she was right. She would throw her heart into every piece she played, and sometimes notes and tempo suffered a bit for it. This is why her professor made her struggle her way through Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier. Rose understood that, she really did. But it didn’t mean she didn’t find it extremely frustrating.

Especially after the banging on her wall began.

Her concentration was in tatters by the time she played through the Prelude for the first time, and Rose had to hold back tears. She thought longingly about the nice and quiet study rooms back at the College, but she knew it was an impossibility to her. She had a hard time enough trying to balance her shifts at Henrik’s and her classes, and the schedule the piano students had come up with to share the classes didn’t give her any good time slots. Those rich, conceited little bastards, of course they couldn’t imagine what it was to work double shifts to pay for the tuition alone. With Mummy and Daddy paying for everything and all the free time to practise. The only satisfaction that Rose drew from this situation was knowing that they weren’t doing so much better than her.

She slowed down in a particularly complicated bar, taking care to repeat it several times very slowly until she got her fingers into the right place. The waxing and waning of the Fugue was starting to give her headaches, and even when all the notes were being played right, the piece still felt clunky and off. In the next half hour, Rose tried emptying her mind, counting the tempo out loud, singing along with each melodic line - but it didn’t seem to be getting any better.

She was one mistake away from resorting to the old childhood technique of biting down on her fingers every time she got something wrong when a loud knock on her door made her pause.

Great. The hate mail begins.

Rose considered just ignoring it for a minute, but since she wasn’t getting anywhere, she might as well stretch her legs. She reached for the piece of paper that had been shoved under her door with a sigh. At least she wasn’t getting a bollocking in person, then. But when she opened it, instead of a noise complaint or badly spelled expletives, two lines of scrawling script astonished her:

_A humble request to the pianist: Liebesträume n.3 in A flat._

She read the note again, thinking she was mistaken, but the note was very clear. Someone wanted her to play. Someone was actually listening to her. Not just hearing noise, listening to her study. Someone attentive enough to pick up on her love for the romantics. Someone who wanted her to play Liszt. And not just any Liszt…

She opened the door quickly, but the person who left the note was already gone. She walked around her flat for a good five minutes in shock and wonder. She went threw open her window, and suddenly the multitude of yellow lit apartments beside her looked like a twinkling mystery. Who could have it been, this nocturne-loving soul? Who had reached out for her in her struggle and loneliness, who shared her passion in this way?

She floated away to the piano, heart soaring and head spinning. She didn’t even need to get the well-worn book from her shelf: she knew the nocturne by heart.

So she closed her eyes.

And Rose played.

The well practised notes floated through the open window, taking flight in her passionate interpretation. Her finger stumbled at some points, but never faltered. The tempo was still everywhere, urgent and desperate with longing at times, and languid, sedate and almost sated in the slower passages. Her nimble fingers caressed the tiles as she swayed slightly in the stool, breathing in tandem with the rhythm.

Rose couldn’t really say if any of the other neighbours complained or shouted or banged on the ceiling or floor or walls. She was completely in her element, completely _there,_ living and breathing through the notes, until the last chord echoed through the open window. She enjoyed a few seconds of absolute silence, straining to hear the very last harmonics as they drifted through the air, until the loud sound of clapping in the corridor snapped her out of her reverie.

Whoever they were, the note sender had come back.

Rose ran to the door with a mixture of curiosity and some unnamed apprehension, a hearty “thank you” in her lips, but she was struck speechless at the scene she found.

A middle-aged man stood in front of her, still dressed in his blue work jumpsuit, drying his bright blue eyes with the back of a grease-stained hand.

It was John Smith, the mechanic. Grumpy, rude John Smith, who also worked double shifts in two different garages and was a complete pain when it came to noise during his limited sleeping hours. John Smith who lodged complaints about the neighbour’s television and called most of the neighbours ‘stupid apes’. And he was crying silently in her doorstep.

They stared at each other for what seems like a full minute. Twice he tried to speak, and twice his voice failed him as he swallowed dryly, eyes watering anew.

“I had no idea you enjoyed Liszt” Rose broke the silence, slightly irritated at how meek her voice sounded.

He surprised her by taking her hand into his rough, calloused ones.

“Thank you so much. You were fantastic,” he managed to say, voice still raw and choked up.

And just like that he was gone, half-running up the stairs.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like it! This story was inspired by a real life story reblogged on tumblr, of someone who was studying and got the same message through the door (without 9 to listen to get emotional over the music, alas), and this little idea was born. I hope you enjoyed the story (and the music!), and that all my drooling over playing styles and music and Bach didn't get much in the way!


End file.
